What is a Currency Transaction Levy?
H.R. 5783 would create a 0.005 percent tax on all foreign currency exchange transactions — including derivatives — by large-scale traders in the U.S. (and U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies) that trade more than $10,000 in currencies per year. • Common Sense: Foreign currency exchange is the largest market in the world by volume — 50 times larger than all goods and services traded around the world each year. About $4 trillion worth of currency transactions took place each day in 2009. The foreign currency market is an anomaly in that it remains untaxed. • New, additional, and predictable: Annual appropriations have not been sufficient to meet the scale of need for global health and climate change. A CTL would help generate funds above and beyond existing commitments for climate and development — to help get us closer to matching the actual need of hundreds of billions of dollars per year. • Equitable: A CTL wouldn’t hit middle-class investors, small-scale traders, travelers or peop
